RedHanded Jill
by t0mb0y
Summary: All children, except one, die. They soon know that they will die, and the way Maggie knew was this...


Chapter One

All children, except one, die. They soon know that they will die, and the way Maggie knew was this. One day, when she was six years old, she was standing with her mother and three brothers, staring at her father's coffin. Being the oldest, she knew that her father had been very sick. But, she was also a child, so her young mind didn't process how serious it was. Maggie had tugged on her mother's clothes and asked for her to "wake him up". I suppose she must have looked rather miserable, for Ms. Archer put a hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, darling! He's never going to wake up!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Maggie knew she must die. You always know after you are six. Six is the beginning of the end.

Of course, they lived at 14, and until Maggie came her mother was the chief one. She was a kind woman, with a soft heart and a love of all things. Her mind was quite simple for and adult, yet somehow she always managed for things to be in working order. And her sad careless mouth had one smile on it that Maggie could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.

Maggie came first, then Peter, then John, and finally Michael.

John and Michael were named for their great-uncles on Ms. Archer's side of the family tree, whereas Maggie and Peter were named from suggestion of their grandmother, Mrs. Wendy Darling Archer. Archer was a name that Maggie's mother, Jane, was hoping her daughter would one day get rid of. Jane had planned on becoming Mrs. Peter Galvan, but her children's father died before he ever proposed to her.

Peter had been an easy-going man. He was a few years older than Jane, and quite popular with the ladies. But he happened to be a sailor. It seemed that everyone in the Darling and Archer families, except Grandmother Wendy, disapproved of the relationship between Jane and Peter. So, they decided to have a child, to see if this would improve their chances of being wed. It of course didn't, although it did lead Jane to raising four lovely children.

However, not too long after his fourth and final child was born, Peter became very sick. They went to the hospital and tried everything they could to save him, but his fever refused to drop. It became higher and higher, until finally, his body couldn't take anymore, and just like that, he was dead.

Sadly enough, not only had Peter left behind a lovely family, but he had also been supporting them. Not being able to find a way to thoroughly support her children, Jane was becoming hopeless. Until one day, Grandmother Wendy invited her and the children to live with her in England. Gladly accepting, Jane quickly had everyone packed and waving goodbye to the house they had grown up in.

The Darling house was not quite what Maggie had expected when she arrived. It was big, and most of the time the skies were grey. There was a set of large spiral stairs, which led to the second story. The floors were tiled with hard marble, and the walls were painted a mustard-yellow color. A fireplace was in almost every room of the house, and the children were very disturbed to discover there was no television set. In the living room, the ceilings were high enough to have one chandelier, which was covered in so many beads and lights, and was so large, that Maggie often feared walking under it. She had a terrible daydream that it would come loose and fall to crush her. In fact, the only room in the house that Maggie actually felt comfortable in was the nursery. This was the room that Jane later decided that Maggie and her brothers would share. It soon became Maggie's place to be.

Life in the Darling home seemed just as dreary as the house itself. Everyday, the Archer children would wake and get ready for school. At school, they would sit though hours and hours of lessons that made Maggie's head hurt. They learned over and over why they should write in cursive, and how important it was for them to understand algebra.

This was eight years ago, and time had changed Maggie from the girl she once was. She was still the wild little adventuress hooligan she had once been, but something was missing now. She longed for something more. She wanted so much more. She was different. She was different from all the other girls she had known, and she longed for something not so plain. She wanted something not so simple as the boring life fate had picked out for her. So she tried to make life better.

The first few nights the Archer children had stayed at the Darling household, Grandmother Wendy had come to the nursery and told them stories. It had been meant to calm them and to try to get them to adjust to their new environment. The children had been captivated by her stories, especially young Maggie. It soon became a mandatory thing for Wendy, that she must tell the children at least one story before they agreed to fall asleep.

As time went on, Maggie began to study her grandmother's technique. Each time she started a new story, and even when she repeated, Maggie would watch closely. She would watch her hands, listen to her voice, watch how her feet stepped, but mainly, she would watch her eyes. Every time Wendy started a new tale, her eyes would light up. There was happiness there, like the kind you find in a child when he first learns to write a bike, or catch a baseball. It was the kind of happiness Maggie wished she could see in the eyes of her mother. So, Maggie decided to become a storyteller. For maybe if Maggie could tell stories like Wendy, she might be able to capture the secret smile in the corner of Jane's mouth. She had only seen it once before, but it had been a long time ago, when Peter had been born.

A/N: Peter Pan does not belong to me in any way, shape, or form.


End file.
